What to Expect at the Cancun Climate Talks

By Damien Ma

Cancun in November seems a better venue for a climate change conference
than frigid Copenhagen in December (any one wonder the
Copenhagen talks had been held in mid-July in Mumbai, if the outcome would've
been different? "Man, it's so hot in India, global warming must be an
urgent issue!").

Joking aside, the Cancun talks open this week,
in the hopes of making modest progress on the accord established in
Denmark. It would be an understatement to say that expectations for
Cancun are muted. From my colleague and climate change analyst Divya
Reddy:

In direct contrast to last year's UN climate change
summit in Copenhagen, this year's summit in Cancun, Mexico is marked by
strikingly low expectations. In part, the Copenhagen hangover still
looms over multilateral negotiations and weak global economic conditions
continue to plague the talks. In addition, little hope for concrete US
policy action will likely stall any prospects for eventually reaching an
international treaty. However, the Mexican organizers have kept
expectations deliberately low in order to avoid a redux of the
finger-pointing and loss of confidence that led many to brand Copenhagen
a failure. Therefore, the primary aim of the Cancun talks will be to
prevent a complete derailment of the United Nations Framework Convention
for Climate Change (UNFCCC). To this modest end, the talks will be a
success--but only just so. Little progress on substantive issues is
likely to be made, nor will meaningful movement toward a plan B for a
framework come about. The longer term viability of the international
process will probably give way to national action plans over time, with a
more modest international framework for areas like offsets and
adaptation financing.

Ok, so not the brightest prospects this
time around, but still some modest movements achievable?

In
terms of substantive issues, some progress could be achieved at Cancun
on financing for developing countries to undertake mitigation and
adaptation measures. The Copenhagen Accord set out a target of
disbursing $100 billion a year to developing countries by 2020. However,
mechanisms for raising this money and how much of it should come from
public funding from industrialized countries remain in question. The
Mexican organizers of the Cancun summit hope to debate proposals for a
Green Fund through which financing could be distributed. While
finalizing funding mechanisms is unlikely at Cancun, agreement on some
parameters for a fund could be made. However, fiscal austerity measures
in industrialized countries and ongoing economic stagnation will limit
the ability to tap either public or private sources of financing.
Proposals for raising money through carbon levies on certain global
industries like shipping and aviation are not likely to amount to
anything.

Another area where there is general agreement among
countries is on the need to include forestry measures in the UNFCCC
framework. However, concurrence on the details is less obvious.
Controversy continues to surround accounting for cutting down trees in
calculating a country's carbon footprint as well as how to account for
emissions offset credits from avoided deforestation or reforestation,
given the large amounts of avoided emissions the sector could generate.
Again, finalizing all aspects of deforestation emissions is not likely,
but determining some principles for a framework could be accomplished...

...Nonetheless,
Cancun is likely to achieve its most limited goal of keeping the UNFCCC
process alive. Most participants are already looking past Cancun to
next year's summit in South Africa. However, even next year, the US is
not likely to have climate legislation to back its commitments, which
elevates the risk of yet another lackluster summit, despite the
potential for a stronger global economy to lift momentum for emissions
cuts. The 2012 summit might face a better outlook for agreeing on a plan
B for an international framework (depending on shifts in the US
political climate) due to pressure from the impending expiration of the
Kyoto Protocol. More likely, however, the international process--while
probably preserved in name--will over time give way to national action
plans on climate change, with a more modest international framework for
areas like offsets and adaptation financing...

Despite having
been dubbed the spoiler in Copenhagen, China should be legitimately
commended for thus far not backing down from its national-level plans
and climate mitigation targets. Its game plan heading into Cancun seems
to be largely about avoiding the "spoiler" designation again. Here's a
guest dispatch from Angel Hsu of Yale University (who has previously
contributed to this blog) presenting another perspective on what China
is doing. Hsu will be live-blogging and tweeting (@ecoangelhsu) at
Cancun.

China stepping up to the plate?

Last week,
the Chinese government officially recognized - for the first time - its
position as the top global emitter of greenhouse gases. Vice Minister of
the National Development and Reform Commission and China's top climate
official, Xie Zhenhua told
reporters at a press briefing, "Our emissions volume now stands at
number one in the world." [my comment: this is a notably different tone
than the one China took when it disputed IEA figures
on Chinese energy consumption earlier this year.] The fact that the
government via Minister Xie made this announcement on the eve of Cancun
reflects China's acceptance of its contribution to global climate change
and recognition that action on its part is critical to the success of
the negotiations. From controversial accusations after last year's
Copenhagen climate talks that China had "wrecked
the Copenhagen deal," the country that became last year's fall guy
has worked diligently this past year to demonstrate that they don't
intend on taking the heat for any potential "failures" in Cancun. China
has done this by reaffirming their commitment to reduce carbon intensity
40 to 45 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, through a submission to Appendix
II of the Copenhagen Accord and domestically through adoption
of the target into national law.

To place Xie's admission
on Chinese emissions in context, the Netherlands Environmental
Assessment Agency reported in
2007 that China had surpassed US CO2 emissions by eight percent in 2006,
which meant that China had taken the top spot earlier than the 2007 or
2008 IEA prediction. In the short five years I've worked on China
climate change and energy-related projects, I've witnessed a complete
revolution with regards to the government's attitude toward climate
change - from unwillingness to even mention climate change in the
context of energy efficiency projects to the announcement of a national climate change
plan in 2007. As recently as last year when working with China's
Ministry of Environmental Protection, my Western colleagues and I were
asked to not include any references to China's position as the world's
largest emitter of greenhouse gases. [my comment: this rings true to me
as well--that the concept of climate change has been duly accepted by
policymakers. However, acknowledgment of climate change doesn't
necessarily mean that this becomes the overriding concern in all Chinese
energy/economic policy making. In fact, I would argue that many Chinese
energy policies are not climate change-based per se, but are a result of
many different factors and interests. But if implemented as desired,
the policies would have a positive effect on climate mitigation. I would
say that an important development has been that the view on energy
security has increasingly converged with climate change/efficiency
efforts, which can generate more aggressive policies down the road.]

So, while China has stepped up to the plate, what will be its strategy
in Cancun? As an outsider to the process, I can only speculate based on
what I
observed this last year from Copenhagen toward Cancun and what we've
heard Chinese officials say thus far. In general, China will act in
their domestic interests, which center on energy security, economic
development, clean energy, and climate mitigation technologies. At the
same time, China is engaging internationally in these talks as a leader
amongst developing countries on climate change. But as much as they've
led by example, China is still putting the onus on developed countries
to bring comparable mitigation efforts and financial assistance to
developing countries.

Here's a brief breakdown on where China
stands on some of the key issues:

On the Kyoto Protocol: China
would like to maintain negotiations in a two-track, parallel process
that preserves the Kyoto Protocol by potentially agreeing upon a second
commitment period beyond 2012 for developed or Annex I parties, while at
the same time moving forward discussions on an agreement for Long-term
Cooperative Action (LCA), which follows from the 2007 UN negotiations in
Bali. China views the Copenhagen Accord as a "guiding
political document."

On technology transfer: China says
that talks will succeed only if developed countries ensure technology
transfer to developing countries, preferably through a formalized
mechanism under the UNFCCC and the Conference of Parties (COP).

On financial assistance to developing countries: China is taking
a "hard line" with regards to developed countries meeting their
obligations to provide aid to developing countries in adapting to the
consequences of climate change, but at the same time willing to "make
concessions." It remains to be seen during the next two weeks what
exactly these concessions will be, considering the Chinese
have already ruled out the possibility of any attempts by developed
countries to tie climate aid to its acceptance of tighter international
checks - or measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) - of its
greenhouse gas emissions. Considering MRV
of China's domestic climate actions was particularly key for the
U.S. during Copenhagen last year, I wonder if this isn't a preemptive
tactic on the part of the Chinese to dispel any initial attempts for
bargaining. Then again, the U.S.
ruled out China as a recipient for its climate aid, and China
also recognized it wasn't first in line for financing anyways,
saying the funding should absolutely go to least-developed countries and
small-island states first.

On MRV: Predictably, the issue of
MRV and transparency of Chinese emissions data was a central issue in
the Tianjin intersessional talks last month. It didn't seem like China
was walking away from its pledges to "international consultation and
analysis" (ICA) of their domestic climate mitigation actions, however
vague the promises were. In Cancun, there might be potential to break
the MRV deadlock, however, as India presented a proposal to the Major
Economies Forum that provides clarity to what ICA would entail. Environment
Minister Ramesh Jairam proposed that ICA would take place under the
UN auspices once every two to three years for countries with a share of
global emissions in excess of 1 percent and be
funded by an international mechanism rather than the country
itself. All other countries would report once every 4 to 5 years. While
China has yet to formulate a position on this proposal, India has been a
close ally to China since the talks in Copenhagen and it wouldn't be
surprising if China supports India's proposal in Cancun next week.

With
a new legally-binding deal off the table far in advance, our main hope
is that the outcome of Cancun will be a set of "fair and balanced
package of decisions" on key issues and the preservation of the UNFCCC
process itself so that countries stay engaged. Nonetheless, regardless
of what may or may not come out of Cancun, what we can expect is that
countries - including China - will continue
to address climate change.

While I think Hsu is mostly
right on China's demonstrable commitment to many of the policies it has
laid out, particularly as part of the 12th Five-Year Plan, demonstrating
commitment is still not quite the same as executing on that commitment.
The kinds of policies and measures China will employ on the execution
side will be covered more extensively in future posts. So watch this
space and stay tuned.